Collectors obsess over odd items

Having run out of variations on the word “hoarding,” TLC offers “My Collection Obsession” (9 p.m., TLC). To be honest, these folks are a tad more focused than the hoarder crowd. Darlene likes shoes. So why not collect 15,000? The oddest thing about Kyle’s 10-year-old obsession with vacuum cleaners is that he’s only 16 years old. Harrell and Patrick are lucky to have a three-story house to share. It’s filled to the brim with Dolly Parton collectibles. You get the picture. Enter at your own risk.

• A real-life thriller, “The Liquid Bomb Plot” (7 p.m., National Geographic) recalls the 2006 conspiracy of upward of 18 terrorists to blow up 10 airliners using soda bottles injected with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide. “Plot” recalls the multinational effort to track and entrap the plotters, who seemed on the verge of the most deadly and spectacular terror event since 9/11.

It turned out to be the largest surveillance operation in the history of the U.K., involving more than 200 agents and high-level coordination with U.S. intelligence. Interviews include folks at the highest levels of security, including former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who share information about the operation, except, of course, when they can’t.

Comments

"blow up 10 airliners using soda bottles injected with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide."

I'm sure that it's impossible to blow up an airliner with something like that. That device would not be any more powerful than a small firecracker. The most it could theoretically do is puncture the fuselage, but even that is very unlikely.

Yes, it might frighten the passengers, but blow up an airliner? No, it's not even nearly possible.

Anyone that seriously believes that might have been "the most deadly and spectacular terror event since 9/11" needs to educate himself on two subjects:
1) The actual explosive power of a device like that, and
2) The incredible strength and margins of safely of modern airliners.